Maids Are A College Institution, But Time May Bring Big Changes

Maid service at Harvard is an institution as old as the University itself. Through the years the cleaning women with the whimsical brooms have been called "sweeps," "goodies," and more recently "biddies." The latest term of affection is just plain "maids"--those who value their cleaning service dare use no other term, for the value of labor-management relations is learned in the college suite.

From the minutes of the Corporation meeting of March 1, 1659, President Charles Chauncey reports that it was "concluded by the Corporation first that Olde Mary bee yet connived to bee in the College with the charge to take heed to doe her worke, undertake, & to give content to the College & Students."

Last on the minutes of the day's meeting was the Corporation conclusion that "Mr. Norton is not thought fit for the discharge of the butler's place."

University supervision of its cleaning women is a little more complicated than it was 300 years ago, but essentially the same system prevails: the Corporation has the final word in determining policy. Execution of the policy is now the responsibility of the Administrative Vice-President and the Personnel Department.

The University hires and fires its maids as it pleases, but since 1936 there has been a union organization known as the Harvard University Employees' Representative Association which acts as the authorized bargaining agent for the maids.

Before Houses

Before the House system the maids formed a disjointed group of people relatively small in number and completely subservient to the University, and in some cases, to the student as well.

During the era of President Eliot there were three distinct social strata: the poorer students who lived in Cambridge's numerous "boarding houses", the middle class students who lived in the more expensive Yard dormitories, and the "Gold Coasters" who lived in the privately owned Westmorely Court, Randolph Hall, Apley Court, Claverly, and Dudley.

Those who lived in the boarding houses fared as they could; those who lived in the Yard had the benefit of University maid service seven days a week, chargeable to the term bill; and those who lived on the Gold Coast of Mount Auburn Street received a service proportional to what they wished to pay.

In fact, Randolph Hall (now Adams D--I entries) allegedly has chambers in the basement known as the "slave quarters"; here the personal valets of the Indian princes and maharajas supposedly kept inventory of "Master's" persian rugs and stock of incense.

Evidently, those persons living on the Yard during the 18th century found the maids or "goodies", a provocative and charming lot. They were called "goodies" with sporting reference to the "good old dames" who had originally been called "goodwives".

"The Rebelliad"

One student who lived on the Yard wrote an epic poem in 1822 that was later published in book form, becoming the fashionable Christmas present from one College graduate to another.

"The Rebelliad", by author unknown, opens with the invocation:

"Old Goody Muse; on thee I call,

To string thy fiddle, wax thy bow,

And scrap a ditty, jig, or so.

Now don't wax wrathy, but excuse

My calling you old Goody Muse:

Because "Old Goody" is a name

Applied to every college dame."

H.U.E.R.A.

The recent history of maid service at Harvard is essentially that of the union from the time the A.F.L. attempted to capitalize on the wide-open labor situation. In the fall of 1936, the University cut the maids' hourly wage from 39 cents to '37 cents per hour. The alumni asked for contributions to make up the dicerence is yearly salary, and the fund was over-subscribed.

The H.U.E.R.A. was formed in the spring of 1937. This new union, which was careful to avoid "union" in its title, included maids, janitors, engineers, polles department, H.A.A. employees, laboratory workers, and bakers--it has a total membership of over 1000 members.

When the union was formed, the maids worked every day of the academic year except legal holidays. In 1940, when Daniel G. Mulvihill became president of the Union, the maids went on a six day week with an hourly wage of 41 cents per hour.

In 1941 the union opened its first office on a daily basis and hired its first full-time secretary.

Last year officers of the H.U.E.R.A. received their first salary; and Mulvihill won the maids a five day week and an hourly wage of 82 cents.

The A.F.L., which made the first at-1936, tried again in 1943, but Mulvihill points out that it was the desire of the tempt to organize University labor in University employees to have an independent union that would devote itself to University problems without outside influence and red tape.

Student Porters?

Most recent plans for changing the maid service are based on the M.I.T. system of allowing student porters to assume the cleaning duties of the maids, thus contributing to the student's financial welfare.

If the student porter system were put into effect the present service, which costs each student about 75 cents per week, would be substituted by a service that would offer a cleaning service on only six days a week. Each student would make his own bed daily, as they do in most other eastern colleges.

Other Colleges

Most of the privately endowed colleges in the East had a maid service until just before the war, when the general trend was to abolish the service in favor of having each student make his own bed and getting the janitor to clean the room daily and vacuuming one a week.

This system currently prevails at the dormitories of Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, and Princeton. Of these colleges having fraternities, each fraternity house assumes the responsibility of its own cleaning arrangement, employing maids or fraternity brothers.The student porter system of cleaning at M.I.T., as illustrated in the communal bathroom.